NATO Adds To Turkey's Chagrin

The image of Atatürk was displayed as a target during the
drill at NATO’s Joint Warfare Center in Stavanger, Norway held between
Nov. 8 and Nov. 17, while a NATO soldier posted defamatory words about
Erdoğan on the social media.

Atatürk is the founder of the secular Turkey. He was designated as
"target" during a desk-top drill. NATO's Joint Warfare Center is not a
low level school but an elite officer training institution led by a
Major-General. The 40 Turkish soldiers who attended the training course
were immediately ordered back home.
Secularists in Turkey have long suspected NATO as promoting "moderate
Islamists". That believe is not without factual ground. U.S. President
Obama allied with the Muslim Brotherhood during the so called "Arab
Spring". But the second incident at the very same NATO institution
points to a more comprehensive anti-Turkish position:

A Kurdish-origin Norwegian officer signed up to a social
networking website within NATO, using a fake account in the name of
President Erdoğan and sharing posts against the organization.

To vilify the Turkish secularist hero Atatürk and its Islamist
President Erdogan in related occasions is a comprehensive move against
the whole country.
NATO's political spokesperson Jens Stoltenberg, a Norwegian politician, apologized for the incidents. It will soothe no one.
A comparable incident happened in 2006. U.S. Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters published a map with redrawn borders of Middle East in the Armed Forces Journal. The map showed a "Free Kurdistan" and Turkey cut to half its size.
The map was then presented
by an American colonel at the NATO’s Defense College in Rome while
Turkish officers were attending. An uproar ensued and the U.S. had to
apologize.

In July 2016 parts of the Turkish military attempted a coup against
Erdogan. Turkish jets which attacked the capitol Ankara had launched
from the U.S. and NATO base in Incirlik. When the attempt failed several
NATO countries granted asylum to Turkish officers who did not want to
return to their home country.

After the failed coup Turkey decided to buy Russian air defense
systems. The move makes sense. The alternative U.S. systems are
suspected to be ineffective against attacking U.S. planes and missiles.
The Russian S-400 systems is designed to counter threats from U.S.
weapons.
Turkey is a partner in the U.S. F-35 fighter jet program. It has plans to purchase one hundred of them. Now the U.S. Air Force suggests that the deal could be restricted:

If Turkey moves forward with its buy of a Russian air
defense system, it will not be permitted to plug into NATO technology,
and further action may be forthcoming that could affect the country’s
acquisition or operation of the F-35, a top Air Force official said
Wednesday....Analysts worry that Turkey operating both the S-400
and F-35 together could compromise the jet’s security, as any data
collected by the air defense system and obtained by Russia could help
expose the joint strike fighter’s vulnerabilities. For a platform like
the F-35, whose major strengths are its stealth and data fusion
capabilities, that would be a disaster.
[The deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for international
affairs, Heidi] Grant, agreed that a S-400 acquisition creates issues
for Turkey’s use of the F-35....Her comments echoed those of
Gen. Petr Pavel, chairman of NATO’s military committee. In October,
Pavel said that Turkey is free, as a sovereign nation, to make its own
decisions in regards to military procurement, but will face
“consequences” if a S-400 buy goes through.

Buying a Russian air defense system is not unprecedented for a NATO
state. In 1997 Cyprus bought Russian S-300 systems, ironically to defend
against Turkish jets. The Cyprus Missile Crisis ensued and the weapons ended up in Greece where they also serve to keep the Turks away. Greece also flies U.S. made jets.

In Syria the U.S. is arming, training and fighting together with the
YPK, a sister organization of the Kurdish PKK which is pursuing a
guerilla campaign against the Turkish army and state.
The personal disparaging of Turkish politicians by NATO, U.S.
involvement in a coup attempt, restrictions on weapon buys and U.S.
cooperation with Turkey's enemy are amounting to an open affront.

It is obvious that NATO is no longer a reliable ally for
Turkey. This view is independent of who holds the Turkish presidency.
The strategic situation would not change if Erdogan would be replaced by
some secular nationalist figure.

Turkey fields NATO's second biggest army. With more than 80 million
people it is a large emerging military and economic power. It controls
the Bosporus and thereby access to the Black Sea. It has influence in
the Balkans as well as in the Central Asian "Stans". It is a crossing
point for major energy pathways including the new Russian TurkStream
pipeline which will deliver Russian gas to south-Europe.

The is little that hinders Turkey from leaving NATO and from joining a
tacit alliance with Russia. Russian fighter jets are as good as the
U.S. designed F-35. Even Turkey's economic interests seem to be better
aligned with Russia's than with north-Europe or the United States. The
voices in Turkey that demand a realignment are gaining ground. The
editors of the Erdogan friendly Daily Sabahwrite:

The U.S. is not the enemy, but neither is it acting like a
friend. Its actions are against Turkey's interests as well as its own.
Now is the right time for Turkey to formulate its own independent
regional policy.
Russia and Iran with their sounder anti-Daesh and counterterrorism
policies need to be at the center of measures Turkey will implement from
now on. After all that's happened, one thing is certain: The U.S.
should definitely be kept out of Turkey's regional policy concerns.

The Zionist lobby in the U.S. has long argued
to kick Turkey out of NATO. Such a separation may indeed come true. But
it would be Turkey that would leave NATO and not the other way around.
The effects would be quote different than those expected a decade ago.
Posted by b on November 17, 2017 at 02:22 PM